


Easier With You

by Ivyzord



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Nightmares, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28765878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivyzord/pseuds/Ivyzord
Summary: The nightmares are back and with a force but the struggle with reality is not much easier. Harry looks for small comfort in calling a friend.ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – You’re starting to recall things. To many reminders surround you. Your house is a graveyard filled with the monuments to your failures. The old spirits rise up to haunt you.LIMBIC SYSTEM - It will get worse.YOU - Before it gets better?ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Before it gets horrible.YOU- Serves me right for being hopeful.ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Oh yes. In your little word it is a terrible transgression that should be severely punished. Yet you still dare to hope.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois & Kim Kitsuragi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Easier With You

**Author's Note:**

> Using the in-game dialogue format. Trying to write Ancient Reptilian Brain and Limbic System. They are... mean. I still liked writing them

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - It’s getting bad again!

YOU – What’s bad? What's going on? Where am I?  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – In the vast and fragile dark Harry. A temporary escape. You’re dragging your feet. Stuck between one nightmare or the other.  
  
YOU – I’m having a bad dream?

LIMBIC SYSTEM - Couldn’t you feel yourself trashing about? Can’t you feel yourself covered by a thick layer of your own sweat? Can’t you taste the fear? It’s flooding your veins, it’s sipping out of your mouth. It’s leaking from your eyes.

YOU – I… Think I can feel it? What’s going on?! Why is this happening?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Don’t say you have already forgotten again. Don’t tell me you thought you have gotten away. You’re not over it Harry. Not by a long shot.  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM - It’s been a quiet few nights but he can’t keep it at bay anymore.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – You’re starting to recall things. To many reminders surround you. Your house is a graveyard filled with the monuments to your failures. The old spirits rise up to haunt you.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - It will get worse.

YOU - Before it gets better?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Before it gets horrible.  
  
YOU- Serves me right for being hopeful.  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Oh yes. In your little word it is a terrible transgression that should be severely punished. Yet you still dare to hope.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - We can’t keep it at bay anymore. The dreams. They are back and...oh. You are in for a bad one tonight, Harry!

YOU - I said that I’ll try. This wasn’t supposed to happen again.  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - A lot of things weren’t suppose to happen. You’re personally responsible for a lot of those. Where a creature like you ever even supposed to be? It doesn't change where you are now. The dark at the edge of sleep and the other world.  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM – None of the sides look too good. It’s all just bad scenarios for you. It’s bad scenarios all the way down.  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - The question is which nightmare are you willing to face first . Wallow in the old decaying sorrow or reach in for the freshly decomposing carcass of your painful existence?

YOU - There’s no other option? No peace? No comfort?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – Oh that’s funny, blue eyes. That’s positively hilarious! You hear that? He wants comfort...  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM - You reached for it already and you did it often but you fought your way from it every time. Whirling, yelling, paddling desperately back to the surface.  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – But if you finally decide for the eternal darkness, baby? Sure... you could stay. Of course you could! Just make yourself comfortable. It’s a one way ticket, baby! Your invitation is always open.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – In the meantime the Shadow is getting closer. You feel it’s steps. Little, dainty needles, treading over your parietal lobe with vicious precision. It’s accompanied by some faint aroma. Can you smell... apricots?

YOU – I want out! Get me out of here. I want to wake up!  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM – As you wish Harry-boy.  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – Rise and smell the rot of the waking word!  
  


* * *

  
YOU - Wake up.

PAIN THRESHOLD – The very first breath you take is chopped and strained. Your lungs are burning It takes a moment for you to steady your breathing to a manageable pace.

INLAND EMPIRE - When hot white apricot terror slides it’s tendrils out of your brain you can think again.  
  
COMPOSURE - This is not exactly a good thing. Your head is a mess.  
  
PAIN THRESHOLD – Your head throbs in a rough rhythm.

CONCEPTUALIZATION - It’s like one of those speedfreak songs that Kim likes but it’s way too loud and hastened, and stuck on repeat.  
  
PAIN THRESHOLD – You’ve had those types of headaches before.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE – No, this one marks a different kind of hangover. Your punishment for the past transgressions you barely even remember.

RHETORIC - It hardly seems fair.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) - But at least there's no smell of apricots to be found here, in your stuffy bedroom. Just you. It's not very pleasant.

INLAND EMPIRE - A familiar, docile sort of misery.  
  
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENTS - You sit up and your bones rattle and chafe in your badly fitted men-suit.  
  
ENDURANCE – Your body has hard enough time healing as it is. You need to sleep.  
  
LOGIC – You’re at your wit’s end. You shouldn’t fear it. S houldn’t feel sick every time feel yourself slip away. You shouldn't be so intimately familiar with every little crack on your ceiling.  
  
YOU - You flop hard back to the bed. You close your eyes, steady your breathing...

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENTS - There’s no use. You reacquainted yourself with your body well enough to recognize that you won’t fall back to sleep.

INTERNAL CLOCK – You didn’t get much sleep at all. It’s around 03:20. Somehow you know this. You always seem to know.

INLAND EMPIRE - With all you lost and had to relearn you where never speared the keen knowledge of the unrelenting passage of time.

RHETORIC – It’s a bit to early to pretend that you just decided to start your day.

YOU - The dreams. This was supposed to be done with. You really believed it will be better. You groan and run a hand through your sweat-covered face.

VOLITION – The decision is just a first step. One of many.

PAIN THRESHOLD - It’s not going to be easy.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENTS - You Body remembers. It will not easy forget what it had been through. The damage you did to it. Traces of poison still course through it. It remembers.

YOU - Remembers what?

ENDURANCE - How to deal with the dreams, how to take the edge enough to sleep. I can’t stress it enough. You need sleep.

VOLITION – It’s that much easier to make a bad decision when you are tired. You are… very tired.

RHETORIC - How did you use to cope when it was worse? Before you lost some of the baggage of memories that fueled the nightmare?

MEMORY - Part of your past comes back in chunks. At first it’s the sight of a liquid sloshing in a glass container, then the sound, the acidic smell...

ELECTROCHEMISTRY –It’s the good stuff you tried to leave behind! The powders, the pills and your favorite, the liquids! It’s booze, baby! You remember, right? Before you where boring?

PERCEPTION (TASTE) – The memory of the sickly sweet liquid suddenly clings to the roof of your mouth. You can fee the relief and the sulfur aftertaste. It’s sad. It’s familiar. It’s nauseating.

ENCYCLOPEDIA- But it’s only 5.00 at the local Frittte. Commodore Red. The drink of choice for those who have no choice anymore.  
  
VOLITION – But that doesn't have to be you.

RHETORIC - Maybe you can have just a little, just enough to take the edge off and fall asleep

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Yeah, just try it, try little, a little taste and see where it goes from there.

VOLITION - You’re kidding yourself, of course. It’s a floodgate you can’t afford to toy with. You know it’s not how it works.

SAVOIR FAIRE - You’re thinking of walking a tight rope but you’re not a graceful ballet dancer you think you are after a drink. You’re gonna stumble and fall in a spectacular way.  
  
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Don’t listen to the boring ones. You gave it a good try and you feel like shit as a reward. Let’s end it.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE – You know the steps… As the ever-present mess in your head is replaced with buzzing and tingling a dark shallow sleep comes after.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENTS – It more resembles the body giving up on moving than the restful nourishing sleep you really need.

CONCEPTUALIZATION - Like a toy soldier wind up to tight, the key in it’s back finally let go. It trashes about the room until cogs stop moving and it falls over.

VOLITION – That’s not an option anyway. Your house is dry now. You made sure of that.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Don’t make me laugh, you quitter! You forgot where you live? It’s fucking Jamrock, Revashol! The drunk central! Drinking is the best thing to do in this sad as shit city.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – You still remember a way to some liquor stores that are open 24/7. Including holidays.

SHIVERS – Slightly to the south, just two blocks away from your house, a dog-tired single mother of three sits surrounded by all kinds of bottles, cigarettes, contraceptives. All the important things you might need in a middle of a night. There are even some snacks and rudimentary foodstuffs.

She reads a cheesy fantasy novel cooped up on an uncomfortable chair behind a glass sheet. Like a weary fish in the world’s saddest aquarium. She feels strangely distant because of it even when she knows it’s for her protection. She wouldn’t bat an eye at your purchase. She have seen a dozen of you that night already.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - And if that’s not your thing I’m pretty sure we can find you a bar! Filled with other miserables and insomniacs trying to wait out till the end of the night, week, year… life.

INLAND EMPIRE - Your kind of creatures.  
  
ENCYCLOPEDIA – The way to several dingy establishments is inscribed in you. They should be open right now. You don’t remember exactly but some of them would still probably let you in.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – So... it’s settled? We’re going? Great! Clothes on and we’re out! Go!

VISUAL CALCULUS – You feel around in the almost absolute darkness. You have a picture in your head of where everything is. You put on the closest pair of pants you can find. You feel for a shirt on the floor.

YOU - Don’t turn on the light.

HALF LIGHT - You don’t want to face yourself or you lair right now. You scurry around like a nocturnal animal. Your eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. Shapes getting sharper.  
  
PERCEPTION – It’s a little easier to see as you l eave the bedroom. Your hallway and kitchen let in a little of the cities artificial light. It’s reflected by the rectangular patches on your blazer’s sleeves.

CONCEPTUALIZATION – Like a pair of eyes, watching vigilantly. You can’t handle this scrutiny. Wear something else.

ESPRIT DE CORPS – You’re not going for cheep booze marked with the police insignia. You have dragged them through enough. On the other hand, so they have you.

SAVOIR FAIRE- Not to mention it’s not very cool. You remember there's some snazzy jacket left in yellow plastic bag somewhere in your kitchen.

YOU – As you l ean down to get into the bag You’re about to dive in but something catches your eye.  
  
ROTARY PHONE - I can destroy you. I can save you.

YOU – You let go of the bag, take a deep breath and pick up the phone’s receiver.

MUSCLE MEMORY - You don’t even think of that one number but you’re unable to forget it no matter how much you try. Your fingers, treacherous bastards, start itching to choose it.

VOLITION – You manage to bypass that initial impulse. There’s another set of numbers you remember. You slowly start to put it in...

RHETORIC - What do you have to lose at this point. He’ll hate you? If you’ll get that drink this will be nothing compared to how you’ll hate yourself for disappointing him. Disappointing everybody.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) – There's a signal on the other side...  
  
HALF LIGHT - You can still put it down!  
  
DRAMA - I’m just letting you know, sire that if you don’t show up tomorrow, or you will show up , smelling like a brewery, he’ll know anyway.  
  
EMPATHY - He might even blame himself for not calling back. He’s responsible like that.

REACTION SPEED – It’s two rings and before you can fully commit to a thought about slamming the receiver back down, it stops.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Hello?” The voice on the other side is tired and groggy. There’s no way you didn’t woke him up.

DRAMA - You can still put the receiver down and simply pretend tomorrow. He’ll still know. Are you sure that you are ready for a day of quiet concern and disappointed looks?

ESPRIT DU CORPSE – Lieutenant Kitsuragi should probably be much more annoyed to be woken up. He would be if he wasn’t having a bad time of his own. It was a work related dream.  
  
He usually sleeps through these dark scenarios but he feels them the next morning. Feels them like splinters right underneath his skin. He does little to address them. Like anything that can’t be easily explained and filed away, it’s easier to pretend the don’t exist. He have thought of sharing them with his new partner. He would probably understand but it might not be the right time. He has some problems of his own to take care of first.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Hello?” He repeats, trying and failing to sound more awake this time.

YOU - “Hey… Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Harry?” There's a quick frantic shifting on the other side. He sits up on his bed. “What happened?” He ask alarmed.

YOU - “No! It’s nothing like...I’m sorry. Sorry for calling like this…”

 _Thank you, for picking up._  
  
YOU - “It’s not an emergency or anything. It’s just...”

… _I’m losing it, man. I’m losing it bad here._

YOU- “I’m...”

 _...just about to give up, throw everything away_.

YOU - It’s all…

 _...very difficult_  
  
YOU _\- “_ I just thought…”

 _I need help and I have no one else, and it hurts. It hurts so bad but I’ll do it. I’ll man_ _a_ _ge if just know that_ _someone_ _still_ _believe_ _s_ _in me._

KIM KITSURAGI - “OK.” He simply says, mercifully cutting your ramblings.  
  
DRAMA – Despite your lackluster efforts to keep things casual he can feel your distress. He wouldn’t be so understanding otherwise.

REACTION SPEED – Think of something to say!

YOU – “Um… you picked up pretty fast.”  
 _Thank you for that._  
  
KIM KITSURAGI – “My phone is by the bed.”

YOU – “Of course it is.” You feel yourself smile a little despite everything.

KIM KITSURAGI – “And what would you say that?” It comes out without the probably intended bite.

YOU - “You’re, you know… responsible.”

_A bit of a workaholic but I don’t have a leg to stand on commenting on anyone’s vices._

KIM KITSURAGI – He sighs. “Someone has to be.

PERCEPTION (SOUND) – You hear a series of little sounds, shifts and a quiet, dull thud  
  
VISUAL CALCULUS – It’s probably him putting his glasses on to check his watch.

LOGIC – He can’t be happy about the time it showed him.

PERCEPTION (SOUND) – It’s suddenly eerily quiet between you two.  
  
SUGGESTION – It feels all too intimate all of the sudden.

RHETORIC – You have called him at this ungodly hour. It’s up to you to keep the conversation going. Think of something more to say.

YOU - “Can I ask you something?”

 _Pl_ _ease don’t leave me_ _now._

KIM KITSURAGI – A soft, affirmative grunt.

YOU - “What is… a folded M dimension?”  
 _Shit, Shit! That is stupid question. Fuck, I’m a dumb fuck._

KIM KITSURAGI – After a quiet moment he asks carefully as if he thought he might have misheard you. “From the In System series?”  
  
COMPOSURE – You’re really taken him by surprise with this question.

EMPATHY – He likes that about you. In a sea of sadly predictable events you remind him that he doesn't have people figured out yet. It is sometimes uncomfortably humbling but keeps him on his toes. Makes his days a bit less boring.

YOU – “Yeah, those books you like!”

KIM KITSURAGI – “I don’t remember ever saying that I like them.”

_Oh Kim. You don’t have to play it cool with me. You are already the coolest._

YOU – “Yeah but you do know what it is right? Lay it on me.”

 _Anything to not be alone. Anything to_ _get through it._

VOLITION – if it wasn’t the middle of the night and you didn’t feel guilty this would feel extraordinary normal. Just two friends discussing a book.

KIM KITSURAGI – He talks at length about the intricacies on how the folded M dimension defies the universe’s rules. But not like pale. It’s nothing like pale. It’s more predictable and makes more sense.

LOGIC – Just how he likes it. The world with predictable pattern and unbending rules.  
  
EMPATHY – He really doesn't like talking about pale. Don’t ask him about it now.

RHETORIC – His explanations are very detailed and quite clinical. He’s concealing his excitement for the series. Carefully avoiding talking about characters and story.

ENDURANCE – As he have been talking you started to lean on the wall and now you slid all the way down. You’re sitting on the floor. Your eyes start to close and you let out a loud, unabashed yawn.  
  
KIM KITSURAI - “Are you still listening?” He sounds serious and stern.

AUTHORITY – Like a teacher talking to the unruly class. Suddenly you feel like you should have been taking notes. There might be a test later.

YOU – “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Hm… Think I may lay back down. Try to get some sleep. You think you might lend me one of those books?

KIM – “You’re assuming things again, detective.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS – You are, after all, a detective. This is just one of the techniques to get a confession. Don’t let up. You know he has them.

YOU – “You’ll still lend it to me, right?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He sighs. “Yes. I can bring you the first one tomorrow. I mean… later today.

YOU– You realize it must be past 4 by now. “I’m sorry Kim. It’s gonna be a long, hard day.”

KIM KITSURAGI– He suppresses his own yawn in response. “Aren’t they all?” You hear him settling back on his bed.  
  
YOU – A dark chuckle escapes your chest. “You got that right, partner.”  
 _But they’re slightly easier with you._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I like ending it on a soft note for the boys. 
> 
> This exist in some part because of my dealings with not sleeping myself.  
> It's a positive way to cope for me, I think. I know I should have been working on the projects I already started but I needed this one to get myself going after being stuck for a while. I hope I'll manage to finish the other stuff soon!


End file.
